


By the time you save my heart I will have lost my mind

by Fox_In_A_Box



Category: Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell & Related Fandoms, Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell (TV), Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell - Susanna Clarke
Genre: Book Spoilers, But Still Pretty Dark, M/M, Mentions of blood and gore, Short One Shot, kind of AU: Drawlight is turned into a fairy after he's killed, maybe just a bit hopeful at the end, this is pretty dark
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-26
Updated: 2018-07-26
Packaged: 2019-06-16 20:10:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,208
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15444888
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fox_In_A_Box/pseuds/Fox_In_A_Box
Summary: Drawlight meets and old friend in Faerie, but he's not quite like he remembered him.





	By the time you save my heart I will have lost my mind

**Author's Note:**

> This is actually a translation of my own fic I had originally written in Italian some years ago and decided to edit and translate in a whim, in a desperate attempt at fighting my writer's block. Hope you enjoy!

"Please, Christopher, I. .. I  love you!"

Some time  before, in hearing such a heartfelt and desperate confession of love coming from his beloved Henry, his chest would have filled with warm happiness and his eyes would have widened in disbelief.  Some time  before, after  realising  that said confession hadn't been prompted by genuine feelings of affection but rather by the selfish desire to gain his pity and compassion, he would have felt his heart break and his eyes fill with tears.

Now, sitting on the stump of an old tree, Christopher  Drawlight  just felt bored.

"Don't say such foolish things Henry! You know it's not true."

He tried to scold  him, but  couldn't hide the little smile forming at the corner of his lips as he saw the confused, maybe even scared, expression on the face of the man on his knees before him. 

He couldn't say how many times Lascelles had already tried to move him with his pleas. After all, he couldn't even tell how much time had passed since, when wandering aimlessly through the roads of Faerie, he had stumbled upon his old friend. His initial surprise and pleasure in  recognising  a familiar face after ages of walking alone had soon been replaced by harsh disappointment as he found out the person in front of him wasn't  _ his _  Henry. Not anymore.

_ "I'm the champion of the Castle of the Plucked Eye and Heart," _  he had told him.  _ "If you are here to bring any harm to my mistress, you will have to duel with me first." _

Drawlight  had had just the time to catch a glimpse of a pale face watching from one of the castle's windows before it had disappeared, leaving him with the unsettling feeling of having just imagined it.

And even after Hanry had finally started to  recognise  him as the old friend he had so ruthlessly betrayed and killed, his features had twisted into a terrified expression and  Drawlight  had to reassure him that no, he wasn't a horrible  hallucination  nor a vengeful spirit arrived to torment him.

He would have lied if he had said that he had never found the thought of revenge at least mildly appealing. But it had lasted only for a moment, then it had been swept away by  a number of  different thoughts and musings. The mind of fairies, as we all know, is such an odd and  changeable  thing.

After all,  Drawlight  thought, it would have been stupid to hold a grudge for an event he was already struggling to remember; the wounds on his spirit had healed together with the wounds on his body when he had woken up in the woods, still thrashing and trying to catch his breath, with the distant sound of a gunshot ringing in his ears. Now, his blood-stained clothes were the only remainder.

So  he had tried -and failed- multiple times to start a conversation with his old friend. Lascelles kept pleading, and forgetting himself, and begging him to kill him right there and then only to change his mind a moment later and ask him to take him away from that horrible place. Even worse, sometimes  Drawlight  couldn't tell if he was lying or if Lascelles had managed to convince himself that he really did love him, after all.

They had even been interrupted, once, by the arrival of a young man on a bay horse. As soon as he had seen him,  Lascelle  had forgotten everything he had been trying to say and had approached the newcomer, offering him the same nonsensical question he had offered  Drawlight  not long before.

To say that  tha  way in which the young man, who had been so foolish to accept the duel, had been murdered and hung to the low branch of a tree like many others before him hadn't left him shaken would have been, once again, a lie. In much the same way,  Drawlight  was sure that the sight of Lascelles' smile as he contemplated the lifeless, mutilated body lying at his feet would haunt him for a long while.

He wasn't exactly scared, no, he was unconsciously aware that Lascelles couldn't hurt him now, even if he tried. What distressed him was to imagine what kind of horrors could hide in his old friend's mind if killing in such a gruesome way had become so easy for him, to wonder how long he had been forced to live in these dreadful conditions.

After witnessing such an atrocious display,  Drawlight  had thought multiple times about leaving and abandoning Lascelles to his fate. But every time he was about to make his final decision, he always found himself hesitating. 

Be it a sudden change in his old friend's  behaviour  or the all too familiar sound of his voice, there was always _something_ that persuaded him to wait just a bit longer, to talk to him just one more time.

And  so  time passed.  Drawlight  couldn't bring himself to leave and Lascelles couldn't do much more than mutter incoherently, sometimes desperately calling for the end of his miserable life, sometimes euphoric at the idea of having fresh blood on his hands.

" Christoper , I. .. I'm  the champion of the castle of--" Lascelles stopped in his tracks, suddenly panicked. "No, no, that's  not  what I wanted to say."

Drawlight  turned away, trying not to let his eyes fall on the decaying corpses swinging in the breeze like macabre decorations. The smell of blood and gunpowder was starting to make him feel nauseous.

Lascelles had taken both his hands in his own, holding them tight so that  Drawlight  could feel him shaking in fear and desperation.

"I know what you wanted to say and I'm sorry, I'm terribly sorry. I can't kill you, Henry," he sighed. "It would be better for both of us if you stopped deluding yourself."

As if to soften his own words,  Drawlight  stroked his cheek with the back of his hand. Then, he moved it to the back of his head and gently coaxed him into tilting it up, so he could reach down and kiss him. Lascelles' lips were surprisingly warm, soft as he remembered them, and he couldn't help but feel a bitter pang of nostalgia in his chest. 

Maybe if he kept his eyes closed  and  kissed again and again he could trick himself into  believ ing  they were still in London, stealing kisses from one another in an empty sitting room, away from the curious e yes of the other guests, as they had done many times before.

But surely, the illusion couldn't last forever. He couldn't keep pretending that the man, who was now resting his forehead  against  his shoulder, was the same person he used to know and love. Not when Lascelles kept shaking and whimpering at every strange noise he heard resonating through the trees.

However,  Drawlight  couldn't help but feel that if he finally decided to stand up and walk away he would sooner or later start to regret it. Sometimes, even fairies must listen to their hearts.

"I'll try to take you away from here," he whispered in the end, a promise he wasn't sure he could keep. "But it's all I can do to help you."

**Author's Note:**

> Catch me ending a one shot with a cliffhanger, tbh. I still don't know if I'll ever write a sequel or something for this one.


End file.
